Foxes: “I am in a fun tornado”

As pop sensation Foxes gears up for Huntingdon’s Secret Garden Party festival, ELLA WALKER finds out that not only can she rap every single Eminem lyric, she’s also 100 per cent in control of her career

A soaring pop music powerhouse of a vocalist, when we talk the 25-year-old is recovering from Glastonbury (“It was mad,” she admits, yawning), and is now preparing for a main stage slot at Huntingdon’s very own Secret Garden Party festival.

The pillowy lipped singer is part of a line-up that includes Public Enemy, Clean Bandit, Bipolar Sunshine, Fat Freddy’s Drop and Little Dragon; and, despite the after-effects of Worthy Farm, is already giddily excited about it: “I went about two years ago and I absolutely loved it. I’ve always wanted to go as a punter but have never really gotten the chance; it’ll be amazing playing it though.”

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Will she be dressing up for the occasion? “Yes! Of course! I love dressing up! What is the theme this year?”

‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’.

“Oh my god that’s brilliant!”

This is how much of our conversation goes, zippy and light, all happy-go-lucky frills and dancing answers, you get the feeling Foxes can’t quite believe her luck, but she’s damned if she’s not going to enjoy every single second of it.

Foxes would be great fun on an impromptu night out. In fact, Secret Garden Party – frantic with colour, dripping in style and sustained by mischievous antics – might just be her spiritual home. Any one of her videos could have been ripped whole, straight from the magical realm of the festival site. From 2013’s break out single Youth, a teenaged circus of horrors, spinning with firebreathers, a game of hide-and-seek in a crumbling, abandoned building, wearing Zooey Deschanel bangs and Minnie Mouse ears, to a rainbow coloured food fight in Let Go For Tonight and dance offs on the ceiling in Holding On To Heaven.

“I’m just a big kid, I’m just trying to have as much fun as possible,” she says, confirming that she comes up with most of the ideas for her videos. “I love that side of it all and Let Go For Tonight was something I’d written when I was 8-years-old so it was quite funny to be able to make that happen.”

It all looks too much fun, jealous makingly so.

“I am in a sort of fun tornado,” Foxes admits, considering the last 18 months. “It’s definitely [been] a whirlwind.”

Inspired by Patti Smith, Kate Bush and Bjork thanks to her mum (“They’re my childhood soundtrack – what moulded me growing up”), she loved the Spice Girls too, and likes to think of herself as “somewhere in the middle of all that”.

Dropping out of music college after a year, ditching beauty school the day before she was meant to start and packing her entire life into boxes, she confidently skipped off to London aged 18 to become a pop star, as you do, writing first single Youth en route as “a rebellion”. Much to the surprise of those she left behind in sunny Southampton, she only went and did it: “For me it felt like a turning point.”

Her real name, Louisa Rose Allen, however was deemed too similar to a certain Lily Allen’s so, prompted by a dream her mum had about the red-furred scavengers singing music like her own, Louisa became Foxes.

In the months that followed, thanks to YouTubing her work, she became the go to gal for soulful guest slots on Rudimental, Sub Focus and Fall Out Boy tracks, before earning herself a Grammy appearing on Zedd’s US track Clarity in 2013 – although she almost missed the prize giving because she’d nipped to a bar across the road to get a drink with Cambridge’s Sam Smith.

As you’d imagine, hanging out with these guys gave her musical clout more than a nudge in the right direction. So much so, her debut album, Glorious, went straight in at number 5 earlier this year, and now she’s lined up to tour with Pharrell, and has bagged a bit-part in the new series of Doctor Who.

How did that all happen?! “I ask myself the same thing quite a lot,” she says with a laugh, explaining how Pharrell heard her cover his single Happy in the Radio One Live Lounge and got in touch. “I always forget that that’s happened and then I remember and I’m like oh yeah, oh my god!

“I’m such a big fan of Pharrell and I think he’s one of those artists that is purely unique, he just seems like such a great person.”

The new Doctor, the rakish Peter Capaldi, she describes as “really charming”. “He came up to me and he said ‘I’m a big fan’ and I was like ‘whaat?’ I didn’t even know how he’d heard my music!”

And filming – she sings in the episode too, out in August – she says was such a blur “I couldn’t even remember doing it.”

It’s kind of understandable, she’s had a huge amount on. There’s the singing, the acting, the festival going and the music video making, but also a stash of fashion and modelling commitments, although unconvincingly she tries to bat that away stating: “I’m the worst poser in the world. I don’t know how really to stand in front of a camera”. That’s just not true; Google and YouTube have certifiable proof. Un-photogenic she ain’t. Perhaps with that knack for false modesty it’s a good thing she doesn’t “go near anything that’s written about me.”

She’s much more level headed when it comes keeping all of the multi-facets of her career under control though, which seems like an organisational nightmare.

“Every single second of it I’m definitely in control of,” she says, getting serious. “I think I have to be because if I wasn’t I wouldn’t see any point in doing it. It’s really important to have a good team around you as well, but the general decision making, I make sure I’m the one who makes the last decision.

“That can sometimes be quite mental – there are a lot of decisions to make. But I think it’s worth it in the end because you want to come out of it and know that that’s all you, everything came from you.”

Other than the music, here are the top five things not to miss at Secret Garden Party:

1. Prepare for the biggest paint fight of your life

It’s tradition for the Garden to be transformed into a massive paint fight on the Sunday afternoon, but this year they are deleting the “fight” element and aiming for an all colourful “moment of unity” and an “explosion of togetherness”. So yeah, that’s definitely going to happen…. FIIIIIGGHHHHTTT!

2. Dance your glittery socks off

Think you’ve got the moves? Prove it at the Dance Off. There’s a ring, there’s a seriously judgemental audience and you’re going to have to get your twerk on in front of them. It’s all very Run DMC. You might want to start practicing your routine now.

3. Get naked…

… and wrestle. Seriously, there’s mud wrestling and lots of it available at SGP. But if you’d rather not grapple with other people’s wobbly bits, you can always get stuck into naked trampolining instead. For those who haven’t quite stripped off all their inhibitions, go for a dip in the lake – bikini and swim shorts intact. You’re going to get a fantastic tan whatever happens.

4. Improve your mind

If all of the above sounds fun but exhausting, rest your body and boost your mind at The Forum. You’ll get to chew over all the big questions (is God real? What is happiness? Etc.), or be amazed by a visit to the Guerrilla Scientists – they’re a renegade bunch just waiting to smash your preconceptions into smithereens with bangs, whizzes and, um, sing-a-longs, proving GCSE science could have been a whole lot more entertaining than it was.

5. Indulge your inner art critic

The arts line-up has yet to be disclosed but in years gone by there have been floating islands and giant hands made out of rubber gloves to be wowed by. There will be The Sonic Pulse Orchestra though which creates music from your pulse readings. It should be quite magical.

P.S. Don’t forget to spend as much time as possible at the Village Hall where you are just as likely to find yourself getting married as dancing 1930s style and playing bingo and badminton. It’s a total winner.